"Prices include taxes and mosquitoes," said Pascal Perron, the director of the Tsiionhiak-watha/Droulers Archaeological Site in the Châteauguay Valley...

Sooner or later, a frequent visitor to Quebec City discovers that the provincial capital is a great place for Sunday brunch, not just for the gastronomic options but also the cultural and sightseeing possibilities.

One such place is La Traite, a restaurant in Wendake, the aboriginal reserve in the northern Quebec City borough of La Haute-Saint-Charles. The Huron-Wendat people have been living there beside a waterfall on the St. Charles River since the 1600s, when they became allies of the new European settlers from France. Then as now, it is a small and densely populated community — with 1,500 Huron-Wendats living today on just 1.5 square kilometres of land, compared with 9,000 Mohawks on 48 square kilometres of land in Kahnawake south of Montreal.

La Traite is situated inside the Hôtel-Musée Premières Nations, a hotel/spa/museum/restaurant complex that opened in 2008. The restaurant, like the guest rooms and hotel lobby, incorporates aboriginal themes into a contemporary design look. Lampshades are done in animal skins; tree trunks stripped of their bark act as support beams; a wood-burning fire pit in the middle of the restaurant, with an overhanging exhaust pipe running up through the ceiling, adds to the sense of proximity to nature.

It’s a really cool look that reflects a sort of francophone vision of aboriginal chic; and it helps prepare the visitor for a brunch buffet that includes gravlax (cured salmon, as opposed to smoked salmon), braised wapiti (elk), venison pâté with field berries, baked beans with goose, bannocks (flat breads), sea algae, smoked mackerel, buckwheat crêpes and maple fondue. Along with, of course, traditional bacon and eggs and sausage and different cheeses. Have a taste of the featured Coureur de bois cheese.

There were only about 300 Hurons and 300 French settlers in and around Quebec City back in 1650. A full century later, just before the fall of New France to Britain, there were still only about 300 Hurons in the region, while the French population of Quebec City had risen to 9,000 — in a total New France population of 70,000.

Soon after the conquest, they were all under the political control of British governor-in-chief Frederic Haldimand, who in 1780 built a summer home for himself beside Montmorency Falls east of Quebec City, a mansion that still exists in reconstructed form today as Manoir Montmorency — another great place for Sunday brunch in the Quebec City region.

Overlooking the waterfall as it does, Manoir Montmorency is perfectly located as far as sightseeing is concerned. Every Sunday, there are two separate brunch sittings — one from 10 a.m. to noon, and from 1 to 3 p.m. The buffet selection is fairly typical as far as North American brunch goes, although I do recommend the distinctive beef tourtière, as well as the baked beans and maple-themed deserts.

Haldimand died in 1791 and for a time his summer home was rented out to the fourth son of King George III, Prince Edward, the Duke of Kent (Queen Victoria’s father). The Quebec Railway Light and Power Company owned it in 1885 when electricity produced at the new generating station there was transmitted to Old Quebec to light up 34 arc lamps on Dufferin Terrace along the top of Cap Diamant. It was the first time in Canada’s history that electricity generated in one location had been transmitted over a long distance for use in another location.

In 1893, a grand new hotel was built up against Dufferin Terrace — the now-famous Château Frontenac. It wasn’t until 1924 that its signature central tower was added on. But as early as 1893, the hotel has been known for its fine dining, including a Sunday brunch that is widely regarded as one of best in the province.

Also notable, though less recognized, is the fine quality of the ordinary breakfast buffet at the Frontenac, especially the Sunday breakfast buffet. Around this time of year, you’re not just going to get good blueberries there; you’re going to get good Lac Saint-Jean blueberries. The variety and quality of the fruits, local cheeses, hearty breads and sumptuous pastries is what makes this breakfast buffet special. For the brunch, take note that the pea soup and Beef Wellington are perennial favourites at the Frontenac. Plus you get to look out the windows of the Café de la Terrasse brunch venue onto historic Dufferin Terrace itself. You can even take a post-meal stroll up and down the boardwalk, and look down the side of Cap Diamant onto Lower Town, where Samuel de Champlain built his first Habitation de Québec in 1608, and soon after made friends with the ancestors of the 1,500 Huron-Wendat currently living in Wendake.

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